Pruett, Roy

ORAL HISTORY OF ROY PRUETT
Interviewed by Tom Beehan
Filmed by Keith McDaniel
December 10, 2010
Mr. Beehan: My name is Tom Beehan. I’m the current mayor of the city of Oak Ridge and today is December the 10th, 2010. It is my honor and privilege to be able to participate in this oral history project with the mayor who was here when I moved here, Roy Pruett. Roy, good afternoon.
Mr. Pruett: Thank you. Good afternoon to you.
Mr. Beehan: I know what brought me here: tell us about how Roy Pruett and his family – were you born in Oak Ridge or how did you –
Mr. Pruett: No. My parents were from Lake City originally, but my dad was in construction and we traveled between Washington, D.C. and Chicago, Illinois. In fact, my two brothers were born in Chicago. Back in about 1936, Dad built a little house here in Tennessee in what was then Coal Creek, now Lake City. But this was a place to come back to when construction was not so good, when he was out of a job, essentially. The last trip I came down to Lake City kind of permanently was when I graduated from high school in Colonial Beach, Virginia, which was about forty-five miles downriver, down the Potomac from Washington D.C. When I came here, the war had just started and I guess like most of my – well, most of my classmates were already in the service. I happened to be the youngest male in the class, mainly because one of my trips to Chicago, I skipped a grade. So I had this burning desire to get involved in the war and I joined the U.S. Army Air Corps, which is now the Air Force. I left and went to Camp Shelby, Mississippi and Eagle Pass, Texas and San Antonio and finally wound up at Chinook Field about the time the war was over. My burning desire was to fly a P-51, loved that plane till today. Well, when I came back from the service I went to work for Roane-Anderson Company in the Audit Group.
Mr. Beehan: What was the Roane-Anderson Company?
Mr. Pruett: Roane-Anderson was the city managers at the time. They were the same thing to the city that the Oak Ridge City is now. We delivered the coal and we picked up the garbage and we maintained the commercial units. We helped build houses – I mean, we did the whole thing. Then after the Audit Group, I was transferred to the Business Office, which later came over here. We were at the time responsible for putting in the electric meters and then putting in the water meters during my tour as business manager here in the city – in this building.
Mr. Beehan: The time you’re talking about, though, we weren’t a city, were we?
Mr. Pruett: No. You were not.
Mr. Beehan: So you worked for the contractors who ran all the public –
Mr. Pruett: Roane-Anderson became MSI and then MSI became City of Oak Ridge. In fact, I was one of the first people to move into this building – or my group was one of the first. We had the Business Office among other things. And we’re the guys who started reading the meters and putting out the electrical bill. That went over pretty good, but when we put in the water meters, lots of people were a little bit concerned about charging them for something that God had provided us. And I think my standard reply was, “Well, we’re not charging you for the water; we’re charging you for delivering it,” which worked out pretty good.
Mr. Beehan: [laughter]
Mr. Pruett: I guess I was here for fourteen years. A little bit later, I was offered a job at the laboratory which I jumped on. It was a terrific opportunity and I moved to the laboratory, stayed there twenty years, and then went to Y-12 to get involved in the activities over there. We were, at that time, restoring quite a few of the buildings in Y-12. So that turned out to be a big job. Incidentally, I came to work when I first got out of the service – or before I went into the service – right after my eighteenth birthday, I went to work at J. A. Jones down in K-25. So I have worked at all three plants, K-25, ORNL, and Y-12, never had a dull moment, enjoyed every single minute of it.
[break in recording]
Mr. Beehan: I know what the city looks like today and the Turnpike and all the traffic and the housing, but what was it like when you moved here at the age of twenty? How would you describe what you saw, what it was like?
Mr. Pruett: Well, my first job was at K-25, which, coming from Lake City, caused me to go through what was then The Project. We had no brick homes; we had temporary units – TDUs that were scattered all over the place. There were a tremendous number of trailers; everything was temporary. Then when some of the Title VIIs and Title IXs, I believe it was, came in, we got the houses with roofs on them on both ends of town. Then we got wood ones. But originally, a lot of work needed to be done the roads and the streets, of course, the main driveway through Oak Ridge and the side streets particularly. And as time passed on it became to look more like a city and it grew. Then we got brick houses and I guess the shining example of having gotten somewhere was when we had the big unit – what is that about a ten-story unit – that J. –
Mr. Beehan: J. W. Gibson built, yeah.
Mr. Pruett: J. W. built, that was it.
Mr. Beehan: The skyscraper.
Mr. Pruett: We had one guy come in to give a talk to one of the organizations in town and he said to me, “I like your city, but where are all the houses?” And I asked what he meant and he said, “Well, I came up the Turnpike and I didn’t see any houses; they must be underground.”
Mr. Beehan: [laughter]
Mr. Pruett: I told him, “No,” he just needed to get off and go through the tops of the ridges and find the houses. So we were pretty – I guess the word is ‘austere.’ It was – it was built for wartime operations and that’s what it was. Mr. Beehan: Did you have visitors come? What if somebody wanted to come visit you from off the site?
Mr. Pruett: Yes. That really wasn’t too difficult. You just had to make sure that they had a pass and they had to go through the guard portal to get in and it really wasn’t all that difficult.
Mr. Beehan: What organizations – like social or religious or whatever – have you been involved in in the beginning and that you saw as – [laughter] that’s a long list, isn’t it?
Mr. Pruett: It just so happens I got the list here and I don’t think you want to –
Mr. Beehan: Oh, do you really?
Mr. Pruett: Yeah. I thought you might enjoy that. Let me just kind of flip through some of these things. I was involved with the American Management Association early on in my career through the local organization.
[break in recording]
Mr. Pruett: Through the AMA, through the local chapter here of Society for Advancement of Management, I went all the way to the International Board of Directors by going through all of the various chairs. One of the things that I was particularly proud of: my work at the Laboratory with the Physics Group. I got involved in the Nuclear and Plasma Sciences Study. I was Treasurer and a member of the Advisory Committee. In City of Oak Ridge I was a Past President of the Board of Directors of Tennessee Municipal League, which you are a member of.
Mr. Beehan: I want to talk about that later.
Mr. Pruett: And Past Chairman of the Tennessee Municipal League Educational Reform Committee, Past Chairman of the TML Strategic Implementation Committee, Past Chairman of the Board of Directors of East Tennessee Development District, Past Chairman of the Board for – you know, I don’t like the word ‘past’; it kind of makes me feel just a little bit out of –
Mr. Beehan: [laughter] What word would you use?
Mr. Pruett: I was a former member of the Energy, Environment, and National Resources Group, which is a steering committee for the National League of Cities. I was a former member of the NLC Small Cities, Small Cities Steering Committee, Past Chairman of East Tennessee Economic Group Council, which is an organization going today, which is probably a group of leading movers and shakers in this community. But we used to meet at the Alexander and I think at one time there was something like four to ten that came – Ben Adams, I remember him, Pete Craven, and other – that group is still together.
Mr. Beehan: They meet every Friday morning now except –
Mr. Pruett: Yeah. Every Friday morning, except the fourth Friday. My big part-time job was with the Credit Union here in town.
Mr. Beehan: Which credit union?
Mr. Pruett: The ORNL Federal. I joined that credit union when we had total assets of about five hundred thousand dollars. I was reading the news the other day, it’s now above a billion dollars. So it has ‘grown like Topsy.’ And I went through all of the chairs here: local, the state, and even on to the National Board of Directors. So if you asked for a list of things, that’s kind of quick. There’s a bunch of stuff in addition to that that I got involved in with the Tennessee Municipal League, particularly. It had several good advantages. I managed to attend most of the meetings with the endorsement of my then boss at the laboratory, Clyde. I really have seen a lot of the world because of those associations, and I truly have enjoyed them. They’re great to be able to look back and see all of the things we did. Saw a short schedule on TV last night. Barbara Walters was interviewing Oprah and Oprah is just about ready to leave her show. And one of the comments she made was that it was a joy looking back on her past experience, but she also realized that it required a hundred percent dedication and then she said, “No, I really have given a hundred-and-twenty-five percent dedication.” And that’s the way I’d like to think of myself during this operation particularly here at the city.
Mr. Beehan: Yeah. And we’ll talk about the city in a minute, too, about what that was like, but let me change gears on you just a little bit and then we’ll come back to that. You raised a family here. What was that like, raising a family here?
Mr. Pruett: You really shouldn’t have gotten into that.
Mr. Beehan: Why not?
Mr. Pruett: Well, Jo and I were married here in 1947. An aside: we went to Gatlinburg on our honeymoon and every year, April the 12th, since 1947, we have been in the same motel in the same room – a pitch for Zoder’s Tourist Court.
Mr. Beehan: [laughter]
Mr. Pruett: Okay. We had two daughters who have married and have done well. My oldest daughter had two sons, one of which is now back in Oak Ridge with a urology group and we are tickled to death to have he and his wife, who is also an M.D., back in town. The other son from my older daughter is in Cincinnati. He’s a CPA and is doing really well. My other daughter had two sons and they are helping their father – he has a construction business. But raising daughters here in Oak Ridge was, again, a full-time job. We had Boys Club, Paula was a cheerleader for the Boys Club and I’m sitting up in the stands yelling my crazy head off at the game and the guy next to me said, “Which one of those down there is yours?” And I said, “The little one in the blue skirt.” And he said, “What are you doing here?” And I said, “I’m making sure” – incidentally, I was a member of the Board of the Boys Club back before we had a building – I said, “I’m here making sure the boys are well taken care of, treated and trained, because when my daughter gets a little bit older, she’s going to be looking at boys.”
[laughter]
Mr. Beehan: And the schools were good.
Mr. Pruett: Well, the schools were scattered around. We didn’t have the big Oak Ridge High School. I think we had the one up on the hill.
Mr. Beehan: Blankenship.
Mr. Pruett: And we had Robertsville. Then we got Jefferson Jr. and then we improved the other things. We got the high school, and we have since remodeled it into a beautiful facility.
Mr. Beehan: Okay. One of the things that you’re best known as is sitting in this chair years ago. What made you run for Oak Ridge City Council? What got you to do that? And what was your campaign thing – how did you campaign? Why did you do it and how did you get elected?
Mr. Pruett: Well, let me not mention names, but I was not particularly pleased at the council representation. At that time, they represented districts and I guess there were several individuals on that council who had served their time, so to speak. Things were not moving along as fast as I thought the City ought to move along. And one of my friends – I was complaining about something and one of my friends said, “Well, you know, the only way to change that is to run yourself. I kind of took that as a challenge, and I did. My opponent knocked on every door in the area. One Sunday afternoon I decided to go out and knock on doors, and my grandson, who is now the doctor here, and I went out and about the second door I knocked on, they closed it in my face because I was running against one of their favorite commissioners. So I went back home and I decided, no that’s not the way to do this. I’m not a knocking-on-the-door individual. So we ran quite a few ads in the paper and managed to go to several of the meetings and talk about what we were doing. I got the grandsons involved in the picture holding a ‘Vote for My Grandfather’ sign and it went well. So it must have taken because I served a total of twelve years on the Council.
Mr. Beehan: Did you have a theme? Did you have a campaign theme or you just – it was in districts, I guess – was it at that time?
Mr. Pruett: No. I didn’t particularly have a theme. I just tried to tell them that I was running for better government. Incidentally one of the things that I am, I guess, pleased with – I won’t say proud of – that we changed the Council representation. I was in the chair when we approved every councilman representing the entire city. And I don’t think that was a mistake. I think that that has served us well.
Mr. Beehan: July 5, 1983 Minutes of the Oak Ridge City Council state that on the first ballot, Councilman Roy F. Pruett was elected Mayor of the City of Oak Ridge for a two year term. What are your thoughts? Do you remember that? Do you remember the night you were elected mayor?
Mr. Pruett: Oh, good gracious, yes. I took the chair over and immediately called the meeting to order. I had an advantage over some of the other folks; I had been on several boards and had chaired several meetings. So chairing the meeting really wasn’t a big deal. Several people later told me, “Boy, you seemed pretty cool about that. It didn’t seem like you were taking on a big challenge.” And I said, “No, just more work.”
Mr. Beehan: [laughter] So you get elected and you were already – how long were you on Council before you were elected Mayor?
Mr. Pruett: Two years.
Mr. Beehan: So you served a two year – as a Councilperson, and then you served – how many years did you serve as –
Mr. Pruett: Eight years.
Mr. Beehan: Eight years as mayor, okay.
Mr. Pruett: And then at the end of my term, I served two years on Council – which, incidentally, was a promise I’d made myself that I would at one time get off Council. One of the things I found out in going around – through the Tennessee Municipal League particularly – was that the communities who seemed to be the least aggressive were supervised, if you will, by members who’d been on Council for – or whatever they called their operating body – who’d been on there forever, and I decided that, you know, we needed new blood. And I ran the last two years, or the last term of Council, because we were initiating this change in the Council membership, or I probably would’ve only run – only been on the Council for a total of eight years including the mayorship.
Mr. Beehan: When you first ran, there were how many members of Council?
Mr. Pruett: I think it was twelve.
Mr. Beehan: Okay. And then I know it was reduced. The whole process, I guess it changed. You mentioned that earlier.
Mr. Pruett: Well one of the things that was aggravating, similar to what’s going on in the halls of Washington right now is we had six people to vote one way and six people to vote the other way and there was several instances where they couldn’t even select the mayor, where it’d go six-six forever and ever and finally someone would capitulate, if you will. So changing the number to seven – always was an odd number and has worked, in my opinion, very well. Exceedingly well.
Mr. Beehan: So you were on Council twelve years; you saw this transition. What are some of the major issues that you faced during those twelve years, not the Council itself, but community issues, things that – what are some of the things that you remember?
Mr. Pruett: The biggest issue was Downtown.
Mr. Beehan: Okay. Talk about it.
Mr. Pruett: Probably an issue bigger than that was the proposed airport.
Mr. Beehan: [laughter]
Mr. Pruett: If I remember, that polarized the whole community. It was too many people for and too many people against. But Downtown, when we were going to bring Crown American in to build another mall – Gilford Glazer – it may be in the minutes, but Gilford came and handed me a million dollar check to not honor Crown’s request, which is strictly against the law. And I guess the moment I enjoyed much was giving him back that million dollars. I just handed it to him. You know, you just don’t get to handle a million dollars at one time.
Mr. Beehan: [laughter] Yeah.
Mr. Pruett: And a million dollars then was quite a big thing. Then I was instrumental in finding out, since Crown wasn’t going to build their mall over where Roane State is, that that property was for sale. We were at the time having a battle with Roane State coming into Oak Ridge in a little greater manner, and we were having trouble getting the area out of Gamble Valley approved. A lot of people didn’t like that location because somewhere in somebody’s mind they thought that there was a burial group out there, and it turns out there really was. It was construction equipment. When I called – and I don’t remember his name – the guy that I had been dealing with with Crown and told him I had an opportunity to make him rich and or successful. That he could donate that property to Roane State and basically from that, we did come to a super agreement and Roane State is in Oak Ridge because of that transaction.
Mr. Beehan: You think that was a pretty successful, pretty significant –
Mr. Pruett: Yeah. Oh, no question about it. It will one day be our biggest employer.
Mr. Beehan: Wow.
Mr. Pruett: You heard that here.
Mr. Beehan: Okay. Bigger than DOE?
Mr. Pruett: Yeah.
Mr. Beehan: Wow.
Mr. Pruett: I think it’ll have more – well, that’s not true. I don’t think anything could have a bigger impact. But on the people living in the community, the people that are here who need that little bit of extra help, that’s going to be real – and incidentally one of the things that we have which is unique to Roane State is a group of scientists, teachers who are now conducting classes for the elderly group – I hate to use that term – here in Oak Ridge and we’re the only community college or any college in the world that has this sort of an operation, one of the byproducts of bringing Roane State into Oak Ridge.
Mr. Beehan: You bring up employers, and one of the biggest impacts we have in this town now and I’m sure back then was the contractors who worked for DOE and when Martin Marietta was here, you were able with – I think with Roane Anderson folks – that’s what E-Tech was before it became E-Tech – make Volume 4 [laughter] a part of the history. Would you kind of talk about what that is and the importance of that to this city?
Mr. Pruett: Volume 4 was a very enthusiastic, before its time attempt to tell the contractor how he would come into Oak Ridge. I think that’s fair. An aside again: Pete Craven and I were appointed by Joe Lagrone to be sort of liaison between the groups who are negotiating the contract. And Pete and I got carried away. We were putting things and managing to get things included in that were wishful at best. And Joe called us to his office one day and gave us each a little certificate about like that and said, “Thank you very much for a job well done,” and Pete and I were fired.
Mr. Beehan: [laughter] Well, what are some of the things you included that got you –
Mr. Pruett: I don’t remember. I’d have to review that. It was a big – it turned out to be this kind of ��� it was a compendium to end all compendiums. But it really was too much in detail, I guess, for people to accept.
Mr. Beehan: What was the intent of Volume 4?
Mr. Pruett: The intent in Volume 4, as far as I was concerned, was probably to transfer most of the ownership from Department of Energy into the community. That probably wasn’t the number one goal of the unit; it was to identify how the transition could take place. That was interesting times. I hadn’t thought about that in a long time.
Mr. Beehan: Yeah. It’s still among us in some sense of –
Mr. Pruett: Oh, yeah. Incidentally I have a copy of – I think I do – I still have a copy of all of that. That’s interesting.
Mr. Beehan: We’re doing this high level kind of conversation about Volume 4 and whatever, but you have any good, funny, hilarious, sentimental stories about the City Council or city managers or city staff that are very special to you that you remember? Is there anything?
Mr. Pruett: Very special. Lyle Lacey. Lyle and I got along from the first moment we saw one another, and we worked exceedingly well together. That was about the time when we got to be computerized. We at the time were having the property tax that kept going up and up and up. Lyle Lacey was City Manager. And the thought came to me, we participated in sales tax because the State of Tennessee required it, and a lot of communities around had an additional sales tax which went into their coffers. And the thought came to me one day that if we increased the sales tax by a minimal amount, we could reduce the amount of property taxes. So I presented that to Lyle and he put to work the computer, and it turned out that I think we increased it a cent-and-a-half and we reduced the property tax fifty-seven percent.
Mr. Beehan: Oh, my gosh.
Mr. Pruett: I think I should’ve gotten a plaque for that. I don’t think I did.
Mr. Beehan: [laughter] How did you institute that then? Did it have to be a vote of the Council?
Mr. Pruett: Oh, that went – we put together a group of people who went out to sell it to the population. We put it on a ballot to approve it or not approve it, and it was overwhelmingly approved. But we had some super salesman explaining why an increase, though it was almost insignificant, would make such a significant difference on property tax. I know Ken Sommerfeld and some other guys were involved in meeting with people and selling the idea. And it turned out to be a super success.
Mr. Beehan: Your twelve years in council, what would be the most significant accomplishment do you think that occurred while you were on council for the City of Oak Ridge – either that you led or you were just there and you were part of it?
Mr. Pruett: I think getting Roane State here takes number one billing. I think that’s a legacy that I can enjoy forever, till my days are come and gone.
Mr. Beehan: Good. How would you describe when you were on Council or Mayor – in any of that time – the relationship that the city had with DOE or the Atomic Energy Commission ��� what was that relationship like?
Mr. Pruett: Fortunately for me, I real quick-like made friends with Joe Lagrone, and I don’t even remember his successor, the guy that was there before him, but Joe and I got together early on and we decided that we were not going to be enemies. So we worked really well together and I think through Joe’s trying to understand what the City was going to do, he was a super salesman for the City of Oak Ridge. Another one of my accomplishments was getting the buyout from DOE. Not too often are you handed a twenty-two million dollar check, by the way. That check has never been successfully explained to this community. That check was for ten years of DOE assistance and included what at that time was a fairly significant interest rate and that’s how they came up with that amount. But it was only for a ten year period. That was to give us some rainy day money, which we still have. I think there’s still part of it here.
Mr. Beehan: There is.
Mr. Pruett: But it was not supposed be forever, it was supposed to be a ten year buyout is what it amounted to. I guess that’s another one of those things that rates pretty much at the top of my list.
Mr. Beehan: How did you approach DOE to give the City Treasury twenty-two million dollars, which today would probably be worth twice that?
Mr. Pruett: Well, that’s another one of those things where there were a number of people in the community who are always at DOE both here and in Washington, with their hand out, and it was sort of a battle every year to get the money put in the budget to give to Oak Ridge and I’m not sure who was the sponsor of that twenty-two million dollars. It seemed like [Congresswoman] Marilyn Lloyd had an awful lot to do with that. But that was a long time ago. You were really – you’re really checking the [laughter]
Mr. Beehan: I remember it.
Mr. Pruett: – the cells, yeah.
Mr. Beehan: [laughter] What do you think is the biggest change you’ve seen in Oak Ridge in your time here? And this is you, Roy Pruett, before and after City Council and Mayor. You’re sitting here and you’ve been here for a pretty long time and you obviously know this community.
Mr. Pruett: I’m going to give you a real short answer on that. I think the city has grown up. I think we realized that we’re a city – a community instead of a DOE operations – I think the city has grown up. I think we’ve matured. I think we are a community and we recognize ourselves as being a community apart from – not overwhelmed by the Department of Energy. Kind of short answer.
Mr. Beehan: When you look back on your public service, how would you like to be remembered?
Mr. Pruett: I never thought about that. I guess I would like to think that I left the city better than I found it. I would like for the folks who go up through the ranks at Roane State to know how hard we had to fight to get it here and finally got it here. That has been one of the things of which I’m most proud. Roane State was sorely needed and was just barely included in the activities of this city. We as a community, we as a Council were really, really behind Roane State. And the attitude of the Council was that yes, we need it and yes, we’ll be willing to sponsor it and help get it here, and that we did. And like I said, it will be one of our biggest employers one of these days.
Mr. Beehan: That’s quite a legacy.
Mr. Pruett: There’s so many things that happened in twelve years: J. W. [Gibson] getting the ten-story building; enclosing the mall, which created the ‘mall war.’ We tried to get an airport here and we weren’t successful in that. We were about to get the breeder reactor and we didn’t get that. There’s a whole lot of things that went on in those twelve years. It kept – it kept a bunch of us busy. I enjoyed every minute of it.
Mr. Beehan: [laughter] Tell me about being Mayor or on City Council? What’s that like? I get asked that all the time, Roy. I get asked all the time and I’ll bet you do, what’s it like being the Mayor of the City of Oak Ridge?
Mr. Pruett: Well, it has advantages and disadvantages and I’m not going to – I don’t have to tell you – I really shouldn’t even answer that question – because you know.
Mr. Beehan: But this is not for me.
[laughter]
Mr. Pruett: I understand. Fortunately, I came into the business down – let me back up just a little. When we came to this building, the City of Oak Ridge, I met an awful lot of people, having been a Business Manager in the Utility Business Office. So as a consequence, I had already met just a huge number of people. I was involved in the Lions Club and I was with the PTA, the girls, so it wasn’t that I was brand new here. I had sort of a following and a fairly good group of friends. I’ve been at the laboratory for quite some time, had those folks on my back. So coming into the Mayor’s job was kind of easy. I came in with a bunch of friends. Now having said that, my daughter was holding my sign at one of the election posts and some guy walked up and tore the sign out of her hand and ripped it up and threw it at her feet. And I never did manage to make him a friend.
Mr. Beehan: [laughter]
Mr. Pruett: So it wasn’t all peaches and cream. It has its disadvantages.
Mr. Beehan: But overall, how would you sum it up?
Mr. Pruett: I loved every minute of it. I wouldn’t do it again, I don’t think, but I loved every – maybe I should say I wouldn’t want to do more of it, but I loved every minute of it. And I had strong supporters. As you can tell from those books that I brought down here, that Jo kept all the newspaper clippings as time went on and it turns out that if you need anything about the history of Oak Ridge that I was involved in, it’s in one of those volumes. There were a lot of exciting things going on in town. There still are.
Mr. Beehan: I couldn’t agree more. Roy, is there anything else that’s burning in you that you wanted to tell people now about your time here?
Mr. Pruett: Well, again, I go back to some of the things I’d like to be remembered for: getting the buyout, getting Roane State; I was on the board of the ORNL Credit Union when we decided to build that facility down there; I was fortunate enough to be able to visit with the folks in Washington. I knew all of our representatives and they were always willing to sit and listen. I was called before one of the congressional boards for a statement and had this neat statement prepared and I started reading it and one of the congressman said, “Mr. Pruett, we can read your statement. If you can’t do any better than that, we’ll go on to the next individual.
Mr. Beehan: [laughter]
Mr. Pruett: Kind of one of the down points in my [laughter] life, but I did go on and finish the statement. That was one of the down points. I still enjoy being met on the street by everyday sort of folks in this town and saying we sure wish you’d run for mayor again and I, real quick like, tell them that we’re in good hands and I’ve been there and I got the T-shirt to prove it.
Mr. Beehan: [laughter] Well, Roy, thank you very, very much for taking the time to come visit –
Mr. Pruett: It���s been a pleasure.
Mr. Beehan: – with us today and to share some of the fine history. And say to you we appreciate everything you have done and continue to do to make this a better place. And it is a better place because you sat in that chair and that you’re still participating. Thank you, Roy.
Mr. Pruett: Very good.
Mr. McDaniel: Just sit right there and we’ll take a couple pictures, if you can.
Mr. Beehan: Roy that was marvelous.
Mr. Pruett: Well, thank you.
Mr. Beehan: We went almost an hour.
Mr. Pruett: Good. If you’d given me a little hint of what you wanted to talk about –
Mr. Beehan: But then you’d prepare.
Mr. Pruett: [laughter]
Mr. Beehan: The spontaneity is so much better.
Mr. Pruett: Like the congressman said, you can read my statement, basically.
Mr. Beehan: Yeah. But you telling stories, that’s the best part. The interchange between –
Mr. Pruett: Oh, I’ll think of ten thousand that I should’ve said.
Mr. Beehan: Well, we might come back then.
Mr. Pruett: Okay. Well we – we can handle that.
Unidentified participant: Do you want to talk about TML at all?
Mr. Beehan: Yeah. You and I share a common thing, besides the mayor thing, we both participate in an organization called the Tennessee Municipal League, which is the elected officials from all across the state.
Mr. Pruett: Right.
Mr. Beehan: How – talk about your participation – what was important about that and some of the things you’ve learned, and why was that good for Oak Ridge?
Mr. Pruett: I think the thing that I got most out of TML – I went through the chairs at TML – I was involved from the get go. I think the most important thing I did was carry a message from the City of Oak Ridge to the other people on that TML board and that group that we were here, we were doing some significant things. My wife accused me of being a member of the Chamber of Commerce and selling the city, which I did all the time. I felt that strongly about it. Not only that, but I went on to the National League of Cities and at one time came awfully close to running for the president of that organization, and decided that probably was a little more time than I had. But the advantage of belonging to that organization is being a part of the organization. Telling your story, hearing other stories. I mentioned most of the smaller communities that were a little bit stagnant were a result of people being in office too long, and I guess I truly believe that there ought to be some sort of term limit. Now if you can prove that you’re being productive, I don’t have any problem with that, but just because you’re elected one year doesn’t necessarily mean you deserve to be elected the next year. And there ought to be some points at which you are judged for what you���re doing and that would eliminate the need for – I shouldn’t say this, but there’s some folks in Washington that have been there too long.
Mr. Beehan: [laughter] You can say that.
Mr. Pruett: [laughter] I take that back. But that’s basically what I got out of TML.
Mr. Beehan: Yeah. We’re a different city than most cities in Tennessee because of what we do here.
Mr. Pruett: Well, that’s the reason I told you I think the most significant thing that’s happened during my tenure, we’ve grown up. I represented a different community when I got on the TML board than you do. We were just tremendously dependent on DOE for our welfare and you don’t have that problem. It is a strong supporter. It’s a strong entity in Oak Ridge, but there are other entities coming into the community that didn’t exist at that time. So basically that’s it. I got to hear other stories, to know if we were doing our job as best we could, and we shared our information here. You know, people had an attitude when I first went down there that here was this guy from Oak Ridge, he glowed in the dark.
Mr. Beehan: [laughter]
Mr. Pruett: Well, it didn’t take much information to mesmerize that group and tell them exactly what went on here. Well, maybe not exactly, but what was going on here and they found that maybe we weren’t such a strange animal that we did have something to talk about and we did have the opportunity to be a great city, great community. And I’m pleased with that.
Mr. Beehan: Yeah. What’s interesting though, I still have to tell them some of those stories even today, Roy. But you laid the groundwork, that’s for sure. You know, what’s interesting, you in your dealings with local elected officials all across the state and across the country, even here, what do you see as common thread of those elected officials? What are they like? How would you describe the folks that you –
Mr. Pruett: Oh, I’m not sure I could describe that. My opinion is for almost every different community, you got a different individual. I don’t think there’s a standard pattern for the mayor of a community or the council members of a community. I think basically council members run because they see a need for change. The mayor is the guy who can best lead that group and I think his peers recognize that. But mayors by and large are a cocky lot.
Mr. Beehan: [laughter] Oh?
Mr. Pruett: [laughter] What is it my daughter would say? “No offense intended.”
Mr. Beehan: [laughter]
Mr. Pruett: But, no, these are the guys I say who’ve been in office – in some instances, they’ve been in office too long. To have a mayor who’s been in charge of a city for twenty, twenty-five years, there’s no way that can be good. So that’s what I’m saying.
Mr. Beehan: Yeah. Well again, Roy is there anything else that –
Mr. Pruett: No. I think we’ve just about covered the waterfront.
Mr. Beehan: [laughter] Okay. Oh, this is interesting, yeah. Do you remember much about the Monitored Retrieval Storage Proposal?
Mr. Pruett: Yes. Of course, we’re still getting a little bit of that, by the way.
Mr. Beehan: Yeah.
Mr. Pruett: Was it the German waste that is to be brought in –
Mr. Beehan: Yeah. German waste is coming in – yeah.
Mr. Pruett: German waste that’s to be brought in and I guess burned here in Oak Ridge. I think more than fifty percent of the people who even had a voice, pro or con, were opposed to bringing waste into the community. I mean, it got to the state level where the state diplomats if you will, they said, “No, Tennessee will not accept everybody else’s waste. We’re not going to be a waste” – and while everything we could present proved it to be an operation that we could handle, you couldn’t in all honesty guarantee that getting it here would be without some problem, some issues. You know, I still think it would’ve given us some jobs, but it would’ve given us a bad reputation. So having not gotten the Monitored – the MRS – in retrospect, I think it probably was a good thing.
Mr. Beehan: Very interesting. I’ll tell you a story; I know you know Kay, my wife.
Mr. Pruett: Yes.
Mr. Beehan: We had just accepted the position to move to Oak Ridge. She was a reporter for the Cincinnati Post covering the federal courts in Cincinnati, Sixth District Court of Appeals, went in and picked up the lawsuit and said, Tom, where are you taking me? [laughter] It was a lawsuit I guess the state had filed. Did they file a suit on this? I can’t remember.
Mr. Pruett: I guess I don’t remember that.
Mr. Beehan: Yeah. But I remember Kay coming home and saying, okay. But again, it was the best move we’ve ever made for us and for our family.
Mr. Pruett: Yeah. Oh, well, you know, I kept telling people that we had a family here; we weren’t trying to sell them something that we weren’t willing to accept. But in retrospect, it’s probably well we didn’t get it.
Mr. Beehan: Yeah. Well Roy, again, thank you very, very much for taking the time and just to share with us some of the history that you���ve lived in our town and the role you played in it. I know from the seat I sit in now, which is one you had when I first moved here, Roy. And we’ve just appreciated everything you’ve done, you and your family, to make this place a better place.
Mr. Pruett: Okay. Good. I thank you for having me.
[end of recording]

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ORAL HISTORY OF ROY PRUETT
Interviewed by Tom Beehan
Filmed by Keith McDaniel
December 10, 2010
Mr. Beehan: My name is Tom Beehan. I’m the current mayor of the city of Oak Ridge and today is December the 10th, 2010. It is my honor and privilege to be able to participate in this oral history project with the mayor who was here when I moved here, Roy Pruett. Roy, good afternoon.
Mr. Pruett: Thank you. Good afternoon to you.
Mr. Beehan: I know what brought me here: tell us about how Roy Pruett and his family – were you born in Oak Ridge or how did you –
Mr. Pruett: No. My parents were from Lake City originally, but my dad was in construction and we traveled between Washington, D.C. and Chicago, Illinois. In fact, my two brothers were born in Chicago. Back in about 1936, Dad built a little house here in Tennessee in what was then Coal Creek, now Lake City. But this was a place to come back to when construction was not so good, when he was out of a job, essentially. The last trip I came down to Lake City kind of permanently was when I graduated from high school in Colonial Beach, Virginia, which was about forty-five miles downriver, down the Potomac from Washington D.C. When I came here, the war had just started and I guess like most of my – well, most of my classmates were already in the service. I happened to be the youngest male in the class, mainly because one of my trips to Chicago, I skipped a grade. So I had this burning desire to get involved in the war and I joined the U.S. Army Air Corps, which is now the Air Force. I left and went to Camp Shelby, Mississippi and Eagle Pass, Texas and San Antonio and finally wound up at Chinook Field about the time the war was over. My burning desire was to fly a P-51, loved that plane till today. Well, when I came back from the service I went to work for Roane-Anderson Company in the Audit Group.
Mr. Beehan: What was the Roane-Anderson Company?
Mr. Pruett: Roane-Anderson was the city managers at the time. They were the same thing to the city that the Oak Ridge City is now. We delivered the coal and we picked up the garbage and we maintained the commercial units. We helped build houses – I mean, we did the whole thing. Then after the Audit Group, I was transferred to the Business Office, which later came over here. We were at the time responsible for putting in the electric meters and then putting in the water meters during my tour as business manager here in the city – in this building.
Mr. Beehan: The time you’re talking about, though, we weren’t a city, were we?
Mr. Pruett: No. You were not.
Mr. Beehan: So you worked for the contractors who ran all the public –
Mr. Pruett: Roane-Anderson became MSI and then MSI became City of Oak Ridge. In fact, I was one of the first people to move into this building – or my group was one of the first. We had the Business Office among other things. And we’re the guys who started reading the meters and putting out the electrical bill. That went over pretty good, but when we put in the water meters, lots of people were a little bit concerned about charging them for something that God had provided us. And I think my standard reply was, “Well, we’re not charging you for the water; we’re charging you for delivering it,” which worked out pretty good.
Mr. Beehan: [laughter]
Mr. Pruett: I guess I was here for fourteen years. A little bit later, I was offered a job at the laboratory which I jumped on. It was a terrific opportunity and I moved to the laboratory, stayed there twenty years, and then went to Y-12 to get involved in the activities over there. We were, at that time, restoring quite a few of the buildings in Y-12. So that turned out to be a big job. Incidentally, I came to work when I first got out of the service – or before I went into the service – right after my eighteenth birthday, I went to work at J. A. Jones down in K-25. So I have worked at all three plants, K-25, ORNL, and Y-12, never had a dull moment, enjoyed every single minute of it.
[break in recording]
Mr. Beehan: I know what the city looks like today and the Turnpike and all the traffic and the housing, but what was it like when you moved here at the age of twenty? How would you describe what you saw, what it was like?
Mr. Pruett: Well, my first job was at K-25, which, coming from Lake City, caused me to go through what was then The Project. We had no brick homes; we had temporary units – TDUs that were scattered all over the place. There were a tremendous number of trailers; everything was temporary. Then when some of the Title VIIs and Title IXs, I believe it was, came in, we got the houses with roofs on them on both ends of town. Then we got wood ones. But originally, a lot of work needed to be done the roads and the streets, of course, the main driveway through Oak Ridge and the side streets particularly. And as time passed on it became to look more like a city and it grew. Then we got brick houses and I guess the shining example of having gotten somewhere was when we had the big unit – what is that about a ten-story unit – that J. –
Mr. Beehan: J. W. Gibson built, yeah.
Mr. Pruett: J. W. built, that was it.
Mr. Beehan: The skyscraper.
Mr. Pruett: We had one guy come in to give a talk to one of the organizations in town and he said to me, “I like your city, but where are all the houses?” And I asked what he meant and he said, “Well, I came up the Turnpike and I didn’t see any houses; they must be underground.”
Mr. Beehan: [laughter]
Mr. Pruett: I told him, “No,” he just needed to get off and go through the tops of the ridges and find the houses. So we were pretty – I guess the word is ‘austere.’ It was – it was built for wartime operations and that’s what it was. Mr. Beehan: Did you have visitors come? What if somebody wanted to come visit you from off the site?
Mr. Pruett: Yes. That really wasn’t too difficult. You just had to make sure that they had a pass and they had to go through the guard portal to get in and it really wasn’t all that difficult.
Mr. Beehan: What organizations – like social or religious or whatever – have you been involved in in the beginning and that you saw as – [laughter] that’s a long list, isn’t it?
Mr. Pruett: It just so happens I got the list here and I don’t think you want to –
Mr. Beehan: Oh, do you really?
Mr. Pruett: Yeah. I thought you might enjoy that. Let me just kind of flip through some of these things. I was involved with the American Management Association early on in my career through the local organization.
[break in recording]
Mr. Pruett: Through the AMA, through the local chapter here of Society for Advancement of Management, I went all the way to the International Board of Directors by going through all of the various chairs. One of the things that I was particularly proud of: my work at the Laboratory with the Physics Group. I got involved in the Nuclear and Plasma Sciences Study. I was Treasurer and a member of the Advisory Committee. In City of Oak Ridge I was a Past President of the Board of Directors of Tennessee Municipal League, which you are a member of.
Mr. Beehan: I want to talk about that later.
Mr. Pruett: And Past Chairman of the Tennessee Municipal League Educational Reform Committee, Past Chairman of the TML Strategic Implementation Committee, Past Chairman of the Board of Directors of East Tennessee Development District, Past Chairman of the Board for – you know, I don’t like the word ‘past’; it kind of makes me feel just a little bit out of –
Mr. Beehan: [laughter] What word would you use?
Mr. Pruett: I was a former member of the Energy, Environment, and National Resources Group, which is a steering committee for the National League of Cities. I was a former member of the NLC Small Cities, Small Cities Steering Committee, Past Chairman of East Tennessee Economic Group Council, which is an organization going today, which is probably a group of leading movers and shakers in this community. But we used to meet at the Alexander and I think at one time there was something like four to ten that came – Ben Adams, I remember him, Pete Craven, and other – that group is still together.
Mr. Beehan: They meet every Friday morning now except –
Mr. Pruett: Yeah. Every Friday morning, except the fourth Friday. My big part-time job was with the Credit Union here in town.
Mr. Beehan: Which credit union?
Mr. Pruett: The ORNL Federal. I joined that credit union when we had total assets of about five hundred thousand dollars. I was reading the news the other day, it’s now above a billion dollars. So it has ‘grown like Topsy.’ And I went through all of the chairs here: local, the state, and even on to the National Board of Directors. So if you asked for a list of things, that’s kind of quick. There’s a bunch of stuff in addition to that that I got involved in with the Tennessee Municipal League, particularly. It had several good advantages. I managed to attend most of the meetings with the endorsement of my then boss at the laboratory, Clyde. I really have seen a lot of the world because of those associations, and I truly have enjoyed them. They’re great to be able to look back and see all of the things we did. Saw a short schedule on TV last night. Barbara Walters was interviewing Oprah and Oprah is just about ready to leave her show. And one of the comments she made was that it was a joy looking back on her past experience, but she also realized that it required a hundred percent dedication and then she said, “No, I really have given a hundred-and-twenty-five percent dedication.” And that’s the way I’d like to think of myself during this operation particularly here at the city.
Mr. Beehan: Yeah. And we’ll talk about the city in a minute, too, about what that was like, but let me change gears on you just a little bit and then we’ll come back to that. You raised a family here. What was that like, raising a family here?
Mr. Pruett: You really shouldn’t have gotten into that.
Mr. Beehan: Why not?
Mr. Pruett: Well, Jo and I were married here in 1947. An aside: we went to Gatlinburg on our honeymoon and every year, April the 12th, since 1947, we have been in the same motel in the same room – a pitch for Zoder’s Tourist Court.
Mr. Beehan: [laughter]
Mr. Pruett: Okay. We had two daughters who have married and have done well. My oldest daughter had two sons, one of which is now back in Oak Ridge with a urology group and we are tickled to death to have he and his wife, who is also an M.D., back in town. The other son from my older daughter is in Cincinnati. He’s a CPA and is doing really well. My other daughter had two sons and they are helping their father – he has a construction business. But raising daughters here in Oak Ridge was, again, a full-time job. We had Boys Club, Paula was a cheerleader for the Boys Club and I’m sitting up in the stands yelling my crazy head off at the game and the guy next to me said, “Which one of those down there is yours?” And I said, “The little one in the blue skirt.” And he said, “What are you doing here?” And I said, “I’m making sure” – incidentally, I was a member of the Board of the Boys Club back before we had a building – I said, “I’m here making sure the boys are well taken care of, treated and trained, because when my daughter gets a little bit older, she’s going to be looking at boys.”
[laughter]
Mr. Beehan: And the schools were good.
Mr. Pruett: Well, the schools were scattered around. We didn’t have the big Oak Ridge High School. I think we had the one up on the hill.
Mr. Beehan: Blankenship.
Mr. Pruett: And we had Robertsville. Then we got Jefferson Jr. and then we improved the other things. We got the high school, and we have since remodeled it into a beautiful facility.
Mr. Beehan: Okay. One of the things that you’re best known as is sitting in this chair years ago. What made you run for Oak Ridge City Council? What got you to do that? And what was your campaign thing – how did you campaign? Why did you do it and how did you get elected?
Mr. Pruett: Well, let me not mention names, but I was not particularly pleased at the council representation. At that time, they represented districts and I guess there were several individuals on that council who had served their time, so to speak. Things were not moving along as fast as I thought the City ought to move along. And one of my friends – I was complaining about something and one of my friends said, “Well, you know, the only way to change that is to run yourself. I kind of took that as a challenge, and I did. My opponent knocked on every door in the area. One Sunday afternoon I decided to go out and knock on doors, and my grandson, who is now the doctor here, and I went out and about the second door I knocked on, they closed it in my face because I was running against one of their favorite commissioners. So I went back home and I decided, no that’s not the way to do this. I’m not a knocking-on-the-door individual. So we ran quite a few ads in the paper and managed to go to several of the meetings and talk about what we were doing. I got the grandsons involved in the picture holding a ‘Vote for My Grandfather’ sign and it went well. So it must have taken because I served a total of twelve years on the Council.
Mr. Beehan: Did you have a theme? Did you have a campaign theme or you just – it was in districts, I guess – was it at that time?
Mr. Pruett: No. I didn’t particularly have a theme. I just tried to tell them that I was running for better government. Incidentally one of the things that I am, I guess, pleased with – I won’t say proud of – that we changed the Council representation. I was in the chair when we approved every councilman representing the entire city. And I don’t think that was a mistake. I think that that has served us well.
Mr. Beehan: July 5, 1983 Minutes of the Oak Ridge City Council state that on the first ballot, Councilman Roy F. Pruett was elected Mayor of the City of Oak Ridge for a two year term. What are your thoughts? Do you remember that? Do you remember the night you were elected mayor?
Mr. Pruett: Oh, good gracious, yes. I took the chair over and immediately called the meeting to order. I had an advantage over some of the other folks; I had been on several boards and had chaired several meetings. So chairing the meeting really wasn’t a big deal. Several people later told me, “Boy, you seemed pretty cool about that. It didn’t seem like you were taking on a big challenge.” And I said, “No, just more work.”
Mr. Beehan: [laughter] So you get elected and you were already – how long were you on Council before you were elected Mayor?
Mr. Pruett: Two years.
Mr. Beehan: So you served a two year – as a Councilperson, and then you served – how many years did you serve as –
Mr. Pruett: Eight years.
Mr. Beehan: Eight years as mayor, okay.
Mr. Pruett: And then at the end of my term, I served two years on Council – which, incidentally, was a promise I’d made myself that I would at one time get off Council. One of the things I found out in going around – through the Tennessee Municipal League particularly – was that the communities who seemed to be the least aggressive were supervised, if you will, by members who’d been on Council for – or whatever they called their operating body – who’d been on there forever, and I decided that, you know, we needed new blood. And I ran the last two years, or the last term of Council, because we were initiating this change in the Council membership, or I probably would’ve only run – only been on the Council for a total of eight years including the mayorship.
Mr. Beehan: When you first ran, there were how many members of Council?
Mr. Pruett: I think it was twelve.
Mr. Beehan: Okay. And then I know it was reduced. The whole process, I guess it changed. You mentioned that earlier.
Mr. Pruett: Well one of the things that was aggravating, similar to what’s going on in the halls of Washington right now is we had six people to vote one way and six people to vote the other way and there was several instances where they couldn’t even select the mayor, where it’d go six-six forever and ever and finally someone would capitulate, if you will. So changing the number to seven – always was an odd number and has worked, in my opinion, very well. Exceedingly well.
Mr. Beehan: So you were on Council twelve years; you saw this transition. What are some of the major issues that you faced during those twelve years, not the Council itself, but community issues, things that – what are some of the things that you remember?
Mr. Pruett: The biggest issue was Downtown.
Mr. Beehan: Okay. Talk about it.
Mr. Pruett: Probably an issue bigger than that was the proposed airport.
Mr. Beehan: [laughter]
Mr. Pruett: If I remember, that polarized the whole community. It was too many people for and too many people against. But Downtown, when we were going to bring Crown American in to build another mall – Gilford Glazer – it may be in the minutes, but Gilford came and handed me a million dollar check to not honor Crown’s request, which is strictly against the law. And I guess the moment I enjoyed much was giving him back that million dollars. I just handed it to him. You know, you just don’t get to handle a million dollars at one time.
Mr. Beehan: [laughter] Yeah.
Mr. Pruett: And a million dollars then was quite a big thing. Then I was instrumental in finding out, since Crown wasn’t going to build their mall over where Roane State is, that that property was for sale. We were at the time having a battle with Roane State coming into Oak Ridge in a little greater manner, and we were having trouble getting the area out of Gamble Valley approved. A lot of people didn’t like that location because somewhere in somebody’s mind they thought that there was a burial group out there, and it turns out there really was. It was construction equipment. When I called – and I don’t remember his name – the guy that I had been dealing with with Crown and told him I had an opportunity to make him rich and or successful. That he could donate that property to Roane State and basically from that, we did come to a super agreement and Roane State is in Oak Ridge because of that transaction.
Mr. Beehan: You think that was a pretty successful, pretty significant –
Mr. Pruett: Yeah. Oh, no question about it. It will one day be our biggest employer.
Mr. Beehan: Wow.
Mr. Pruett: You heard that here.
Mr. Beehan: Okay. Bigger than DOE?
Mr. Pruett: Yeah.
Mr. Beehan: Wow.
Mr. Pruett: I think it’ll have more – well, that’s not true. I don’t think anything could have a bigger impact. But on the people living in the community, the people that are here who need that little bit of extra help, that’s going to be real – and incidentally one of the things that we have which is unique to Roane State is a group of scientists, teachers who are now conducting classes for the elderly group – I hate to use that term – here in Oak Ridge and we’re the only community college or any college in the world that has this sort of an operation, one of the byproducts of bringing Roane State into Oak Ridge.
Mr. Beehan: You bring up employers, and one of the biggest impacts we have in this town now and I’m sure back then was the contractors who worked for DOE and when Martin Marietta was here, you were able with – I think with Roane Anderson folks – that’s what E-Tech was before it became E-Tech – make Volume 4 [laughter] a part of the history. Would you kind of talk about what that is and the importance of that to this city?
Mr. Pruett: Volume 4 was a very enthusiastic, before its time attempt to tell the contractor how he would come into Oak Ridge. I think that’s fair. An aside again: Pete Craven and I were appointed by Joe Lagrone to be sort of liaison between the groups who are negotiating the contract. And Pete and I got carried away. We were putting things and managing to get things included in that were wishful at best. And Joe called us to his office one day and gave us each a little certificate about like that and said, “Thank you very much for a job well done,” and Pete and I were fired.
Mr. Beehan: [laughter] Well, what are some of the things you included that got you –
Mr. Pruett: I don’t remember. I’d have to review that. It was a big – it turned out to be this kind of ��� it was a compendium to end all compendiums. But it really was too much in detail, I guess, for people to accept.
Mr. Beehan: What was the intent of Volume 4?
Mr. Pruett: The intent in Volume 4, as far as I was concerned, was probably to transfer most of the ownership from Department of Energy into the community. That probably wasn’t the number one goal of the unit; it was to identify how the transition could take place. That was interesting times. I hadn’t thought about that in a long time.
Mr. Beehan: Yeah. It’s still among us in some sense of –
Mr. Pruett: Oh, yeah. Incidentally I have a copy of – I think I do – I still have a copy of all of that. That’s interesting.
Mr. Beehan: We’re doing this high level kind of conversation about Volume 4 and whatever, but you have any good, funny, hilarious, sentimental stories about the City Council or city managers or city staff that are very special to you that you remember? Is there anything?
Mr. Pruett: Very special. Lyle Lacey. Lyle and I got along from the first moment we saw one another, and we worked exceedingly well together. That was about the time when we got to be computerized. We at the time were having the property tax that kept going up and up and up. Lyle Lacey was City Manager. And the thought came to me, we participated in sales tax because the State of Tennessee required it, and a lot of communities around had an additional sales tax which went into their coffers. And the thought came to me one day that if we increased the sales tax by a minimal amount, we could reduce the amount of property taxes. So I presented that to Lyle and he put to work the computer, and it turned out that I think we increased it a cent-and-a-half and we reduced the property tax fifty-seven percent.
Mr. Beehan: Oh, my gosh.
Mr. Pruett: I think I should’ve gotten a plaque for that. I don’t think I did.
Mr. Beehan: [laughter] How did you institute that then? Did it have to be a vote of the Council?
Mr. Pruett: Oh, that went – we put together a group of people who went out to sell it to the population. We put it on a ballot to approve it or not approve it, and it was overwhelmingly approved. But we had some super salesman explaining why an increase, though it was almost insignificant, would make such a significant difference on property tax. I know Ken Sommerfeld and some other guys were involved in meeting with people and selling the idea. And it turned out to be a super success.
Mr. Beehan: Your twelve years in council, what would be the most significant accomplishment do you think that occurred while you were on council for the City of Oak Ridge – either that you led or you were just there and you were part of it?
Mr. Pruett: I think getting Roane State here takes number one billing. I think that’s a legacy that I can enjoy forever, till my days are come and gone.
Mr. Beehan: Good. How would you describe when you were on Council or Mayor – in any of that time – the relationship that the city had with DOE or the Atomic Energy Commission ��� what was that relationship like?
Mr. Pruett: Fortunately for me, I real quick-like made friends with Joe Lagrone, and I don’t even remember his successor, the guy that was there before him, but Joe and I got together early on and we decided that we were not going to be enemies. So we worked really well together and I think through Joe’s trying to understand what the City was going to do, he was a super salesman for the City of Oak Ridge. Another one of my accomplishments was getting the buyout from DOE. Not too often are you handed a twenty-two million dollar check, by the way. That check has never been successfully explained to this community. That check was for ten years of DOE assistance and included what at that time was a fairly significant interest rate and that’s how they came up with that amount. But it was only for a ten year period. That was to give us some rainy day money, which we still have. I think there’s still part of it here.
Mr. Beehan: There is.
Mr. Pruett: But it was not supposed be forever, it was supposed to be a ten year buyout is what it amounted to. I guess that’s another one of those things that rates pretty much at the top of my list.
Mr. Beehan: How did you approach DOE to give the City Treasury twenty-two million dollars, which today would probably be worth twice that?
Mr. Pruett: Well, that’s another one of those things where there were a number of people in the community who are always at DOE both here and in Washington, with their hand out, and it was sort of a battle every year to get the money put in the budget to give to Oak Ridge and I’m not sure who was the sponsor of that twenty-two million dollars. It seemed like [Congresswoman] Marilyn Lloyd had an awful lot to do with that. But that was a long time ago. You were really – you’re really checking the [laughter]
Mr. Beehan: I remember it.
Mr. Pruett: – the cells, yeah.
Mr. Beehan: [laughter] What do you think is the biggest change you’ve seen in Oak Ridge in your time here? And this is you, Roy Pruett, before and after City Council and Mayor. You’re sitting here and you’ve been here for a pretty long time and you obviously know this community.
Mr. Pruett: I’m going to give you a real short answer on that. I think the city has grown up. I think we realized that we’re a city – a community instead of a DOE operations – I think the city has grown up. I think we’ve matured. I think we are a community and we recognize ourselves as being a community apart from – not overwhelmed by the Department of Energy. Kind of short answer.
Mr. Beehan: When you look back on your public service, how would you like to be remembered?
Mr. Pruett: I never thought about that. I guess I would like to think that I left the city better than I found it. I would like for the folks who go up through the ranks at Roane State to know how hard we had to fight to get it here and finally got it here. That has been one of the things of which I’m most proud. Roane State was sorely needed and was just barely included in the activities of this city. We as a community, we as a Council were really, really behind Roane State. And the attitude of the Council was that yes, we need it and yes, we’ll be willing to sponsor it and help get it here, and that we did. And like I said, it will be one of our biggest employers one of these days.
Mr. Beehan: That’s quite a legacy.
Mr. Pruett: There’s so many things that happened in twelve years: J. W. [Gibson] getting the ten-story building; enclosing the mall, which created the ‘mall war.’ We tried to get an airport here and we weren’t successful in that. We were about to get the breeder reactor and we didn’t get that. There’s a whole lot of things that went on in those twelve years. It kept – it kept a bunch of us busy. I enjoyed every minute of it.
Mr. Beehan: [laughter] Tell me about being Mayor or on City Council? What’s that like? I get asked that all the time, Roy. I get asked all the time and I’ll bet you do, what’s it like being the Mayor of the City of Oak Ridge?
Mr. Pruett: Well, it has advantages and disadvantages and I’m not going to – I don’t have to tell you – I really shouldn’t even answer that question – because you know.
Mr. Beehan: But this is not for me.
[laughter]
Mr. Pruett: I understand. Fortunately, I came into the business down – let me back up just a little. When we came to this building, the City of Oak Ridge, I met an awful lot of people, having been a Business Manager in the Utility Business Office. So as a consequence, I had already met just a huge number of people. I was involved in the Lions Club and I was with the PTA, the girls, so it wasn’t that I was brand new here. I had sort of a following and a fairly good group of friends. I’ve been at the laboratory for quite some time, had those folks on my back. So coming into the Mayor’s job was kind of easy. I came in with a bunch of friends. Now having said that, my daughter was holding my sign at one of the election posts and some guy walked up and tore the sign out of her hand and ripped it up and threw it at her feet. And I never did manage to make him a friend.
Mr. Beehan: [laughter]
Mr. Pruett: So it wasn’t all peaches and cream. It has its disadvantages.
Mr. Beehan: But overall, how would you sum it up?
Mr. Pruett: I loved every minute of it. I wouldn’t do it again, I don’t think, but I loved every – maybe I should say I wouldn’t want to do more of it, but I loved every minute of it. And I had strong supporters. As you can tell from those books that I brought down here, that Jo kept all the newspaper clippings as time went on and it turns out that if you need anything about the history of Oak Ridge that I was involved in, it’s in one of those volumes. There were a lot of exciting things going on in town. There still are.
Mr. Beehan: I couldn’t agree more. Roy, is there anything else that’s burning in you that you wanted to tell people now about your time here?
Mr. Pruett: Well, again, I go back to some of the things I’d like to be remembered for: getting the buyout, getting Roane State; I was on the board of the ORNL Credit Union when we decided to build that facility down there; I was fortunate enough to be able to visit with the folks in Washington. I knew all of our representatives and they were always willing to sit and listen. I was called before one of the congressional boards for a statement and had this neat statement prepared and I started reading it and one of the congressman said, “Mr. Pruett, we can read your statement. If you can’t do any better than that, we’ll go on to the next individual.
Mr. Beehan: [laughter]
Mr. Pruett: Kind of one of the down points in my [laughter] life, but I did go on and finish the statement. That was one of the down points. I still enjoy being met on the street by everyday sort of folks in this town and saying we sure wish you’d run for mayor again and I, real quick like, tell them that we’re in good hands and I’ve been there and I got the T-shirt to prove it.
Mr. Beehan: [laughter] Well, Roy, thank you very, very much for taking the time to come visit –
Mr. Pruett: It���s been a pleasure.
Mr. Beehan: – with us today and to share some of the fine history. And say to you we appreciate everything you have done and continue to do to make this a better place. And it is a better place because you sat in that chair and that you’re still participating. Thank you, Roy.
Mr. Pruett: Very good.
Mr. McDaniel: Just sit right there and we’ll take a couple pictures, if you can.
Mr. Beehan: Roy that was marvelous.
Mr. Pruett: Well, thank you.
Mr. Beehan: We went almost an hour.
Mr. Pruett: Good. If you’d given me a little hint of what you wanted to talk about –
Mr. Beehan: But then you’d prepare.
Mr. Pruett: [laughter]
Mr. Beehan: The spontaneity is so much better.
Mr. Pruett: Like the congressman said, you can read my statement, basically.
Mr. Beehan: Yeah. But you telling stories, that’s the best part. The interchange between –
Mr. Pruett: Oh, I’ll think of ten thousand that I should’ve said.
Mr. Beehan: Well, we might come back then.
Mr. Pruett: Okay. Well we – we can handle that.
Unidentified participant: Do you want to talk about TML at all?
Mr. Beehan: Yeah. You and I share a common thing, besides the mayor thing, we both participate in an organization called the Tennessee Municipal League, which is the elected officials from all across the state.
Mr. Pruett: Right.
Mr. Beehan: How – talk about your participation – what was important about that and some of the things you’ve learned, and why was that good for Oak Ridge?
Mr. Pruett: I think the thing that I got most out of TML – I went through the chairs at TML – I was involved from the get go. I think the most important thing I did was carry a message from the City of Oak Ridge to the other people on that TML board and that group that we were here, we were doing some significant things. My wife accused me of being a member of the Chamber of Commerce and selling the city, which I did all the time. I felt that strongly about it. Not only that, but I went on to the National League of Cities and at one time came awfully close to running for the president of that organization, and decided that probably was a little more time than I had. But the advantage of belonging to that organization is being a part of the organization. Telling your story, hearing other stories. I mentioned most of the smaller communities that were a little bit stagnant were a result of people being in office too long, and I guess I truly believe that there ought to be some sort of term limit. Now if you can prove that you’re being productive, I don’t have any problem with that, but just because you’re elected one year doesn’t necessarily mean you deserve to be elected the next year. And there ought to be some points at which you are judged for what you���re doing and that would eliminate the need for – I shouldn’t say this, but there’s some folks in Washington that have been there too long.
Mr. Beehan: [laughter] You can say that.
Mr. Pruett: [laughter] I take that back. But that’s basically what I got out of TML.
Mr. Beehan: Yeah. We’re a different city than most cities in Tennessee because of what we do here.
Mr. Pruett: Well, that’s the reason I told you I think the most significant thing that’s happened during my tenure, we’ve grown up. I represented a different community when I got on the TML board than you do. We were just tremendously dependent on DOE for our welfare and you don’t have that problem. It is a strong supporter. It’s a strong entity in Oak Ridge, but there are other entities coming into the community that didn’t exist at that time. So basically that’s it. I got to hear other stories, to know if we were doing our job as best we could, and we shared our information here. You know, people had an attitude when I first went down there that here was this guy from Oak Ridge, he glowed in the dark.
Mr. Beehan: [laughter]
Mr. Pruett: Well, it didn’t take much information to mesmerize that group and tell them exactly what went on here. Well, maybe not exactly, but what was going on here and they found that maybe we weren’t such a strange animal that we did have something to talk about and we did have the opportunity to be a great city, great community. And I’m pleased with that.
Mr. Beehan: Yeah. What’s interesting though, I still have to tell them some of those stories even today, Roy. But you laid the groundwork, that’s for sure. You know, what’s interesting, you in your dealings with local elected officials all across the state and across the country, even here, what do you see as common thread of those elected officials? What are they like? How would you describe the folks that you –
Mr. Pruett: Oh, I’m not sure I could describe that. My opinion is for almost every different community, you got a different individual. I don’t think there’s a standard pattern for the mayor of a community or the council members of a community. I think basically council members run because they see a need for change. The mayor is the guy who can best lead that group and I think his peers recognize that. But mayors by and large are a cocky lot.
Mr. Beehan: [laughter] Oh?
Mr. Pruett: [laughter] What is it my daughter would say? “No offense intended.”
Mr. Beehan: [laughter]
Mr. Pruett: But, no, these are the guys I say who’ve been in office – in some instances, they’ve been in office too long. To have a mayor who’s been in charge of a city for twenty, twenty-five years, there’s no way that can be good. So that’s what I’m saying.
Mr. Beehan: Yeah. Well again, Roy is there anything else that –
Mr. Pruett: No. I think we’ve just about covered the waterfront.
Mr. Beehan: [laughter] Okay. Oh, this is interesting, yeah. Do you remember much about the Monitored Retrieval Storage Proposal?
Mr. Pruett: Yes. Of course, we’re still getting a little bit of that, by the way.
Mr. Beehan: Yeah.
Mr. Pruett: Was it the German waste that is to be brought in –
Mr. Beehan: Yeah. German waste is coming in – yeah.
Mr. Pruett: German waste that’s to be brought in and I guess burned here in Oak Ridge. I think more than fifty percent of the people who even had a voice, pro or con, were opposed to bringing waste into the community. I mean, it got to the state level where the state diplomats if you will, they said, “No, Tennessee will not accept everybody else’s waste. We’re not going to be a waste” – and while everything we could present proved it to be an operation that we could handle, you couldn’t in all honesty guarantee that getting it here would be without some problem, some issues. You know, I still think it would’ve given us some jobs, but it would’ve given us a bad reputation. So having not gotten the Monitored – the MRS – in retrospect, I think it probably was a good thing.
Mr. Beehan: Very interesting. I’ll tell you a story; I know you know Kay, my wife.
Mr. Pruett: Yes.
Mr. Beehan: We had just accepted the position to move to Oak Ridge. She was a reporter for the Cincinnati Post covering the federal courts in Cincinnati, Sixth District Court of Appeals, went in and picked up the lawsuit and said, Tom, where are you taking me? [laughter] It was a lawsuit I guess the state had filed. Did they file a suit on this? I can’t remember.
Mr. Pruett: I guess I don’t remember that.
Mr. Beehan: Yeah. But I remember Kay coming home and saying, okay. But again, it was the best move we’ve ever made for us and for our family.
Mr. Pruett: Yeah. Oh, well, you know, I kept telling people that we had a family here; we weren’t trying to sell them something that we weren’t willing to accept. But in retrospect, it’s probably well we didn’t get it.
Mr. Beehan: Yeah. Well Roy, again, thank you very, very much for taking the time and just to share with us some of the history that you���ve lived in our town and the role you played in it. I know from the seat I sit in now, which is one you had when I first moved here, Roy. And we’ve just appreciated everything you’ve done, you and your family, to make this place a better place.
Mr. Pruett: Okay. Good. I thank you for having me.
[end of recording]